“Gertie wore to school a locket on a glittering
chain; Rebecca showed a new ring.”
Sally said her church was having a season of prayer, and her Mother said Sally was old enough now to go, and as it was both afternoons and evenings, Sally had had no time to write a Composition.
Miss Fanny told Sally to remain in at recess and write it. Mr. Bryan had inquired for her Composition.
Sally remained in tears. The subject for her Composition was “Duty.”
Miss Fanny put her hand on Sally’s shoulder and said something about a divided duty. And Sally cried some more, and Miss Fanny sat down at the desk and helped her.
Emmy Lou saw it. She had come upstairs, in a moment of doubt and perplexity, to consult the Dictionary; the word was heretic.
It was this way. They had been in a group at recess and Mary Agatha was dividing her button-string. Mary Agatha said she had given up worldly things, and it would be a sin for her to own a button-string.
She offered Hattie a button. Hattie refused it; she said if it was a sin to own a button-string, why should Mary Agatha offer her buttons to other people? And she walked off. Hattie had an uncompromising way of putting things. Hattie was a Presbyterian.
Emmy Lou felt anxious; she had been offered a button first and had taken it gratefully, for her button-string was short.
But Mary Agatha assured her that she and Hattie and the others of the group could own button-strings where Mary Agatha could not. A mere matter of a button-string made small difference. They were Heretics.